Clan Jade Falcon Thread II: Falcon Harder. I SAID HARDER!

[Weirdo]

Does anyone know of a canon support vehicle available to the Falcons, that can carry a 70-ton load faster than 3/5 on roads?

I really want to get a Minsk 2 when they come out for my Watch Intervention force, but its overland speed sucks for a COIN force. It'll work just fine once it arrives at the battlefield, but I'm hoping to find some kind of truck that could get it near an area of operations before the targeted rioters or Society cell or whatever actually escapes.

Don't worry about how the pilot would feel about this, I've already decided he'll probably be a dried-up solahma that hates everything about his life at this point.

[Foxx Ital]

I'm getting visions of patlabor.

[Weirdo]

Pretty much.

[Jellico]

One of the recovery vehicles? There are some heavy lift choppers but you want ground bound.

Is it that necessary? Minsk level fire-power would only really come into play after the insurgents go to ground.

[Weirdo]

The Minsk is there to provide heavy firepower in case insurgents get ahold of their own heavy equipment that riot troops, Sokars, and Chalupas cannot handle. It also has oodles of anti-personnel firepower of its own.

I have no issues with using a flying support unit. I mentioned roads because it would be operating alongside mechinf and combat vees, I honestly forgot about the aerial approach. It would work nicely, giving me a support Point along with the Schatten-analogue I already plan to include.

[Trajan Helmer]

Trothkin can I be honest with you? I'm starting to dread the ilClan book. I'm not sure I see any way it could be anyone other than the freakin' Wolves taking the title.

I've thought this  as I've started reading Divided We Fall. But I suspect something more complicated and nuanced than, "Wolvz r da IlClan 4everz," is what we'll get.  Now, I haven't finished that novella yet (I probably will tonight), but I don't see the Wolf's Dragoons as being able to hold off the Jade Falcons or cripple them by themselves without being completely destroyed in the process.  Whatever Alaric has planned against the Republic & the Falcons, something is probably going to go wrong spectacularly, something not seen by Ward or Hazen.  Alaric may reach the pinnacle to be brought down by discovery and publishing of his actual non-Clan genetic heritage and be tossed aside like yesterday's garbage, in favor of a real Clanner, whomever they may be.

I've favored a view where some acceptable (to the people involved) compromise or amalgamation of the Wolves and Falcons produce the IlClan as any winner too weak could invite the Bears to pull in the Dominion after them to secure Terra and stability for the Inner Sphere. (This isn't a bad thing, just horrible if you expect Clan W or JF to win it)
I also think Malvina isn't long for leadership. Suppose she wins Terra. Maybe Stephie Chis or some unknown, or Cynthy offs her (Hell, wouldn't it be sweet for Alaric to do so, just before he may fall?)  and the Falcons consolidate under another warrior even if they splinter after Malvina's [hoped-for] death.  After all, forsaking Unity when the great prize is right before you for too long a time will net you a big, fat zero.

The point is, however it happens the other Clans will come into play.  The sooner they do, the better long term for their situation under the IlClan.  The two strongest Houses are the Combine and the Confederation right now. The IlClan will likely handle the Confederation, humbling Daoshen and the Combine is sandwiched between the opportunistic Ravens and the might of the Bears.  The Horses will gallop wherever they may be directed to and the Sea Foxes are excellently placed to cause trouble within all the Houses. 

Plus two possible wild cards: The Smoke Fidelis and the Wolverines.  From what MarauderCH IIC indicated in another post, future reverence for Lincoln, Leo, and the others may portend a major play on the Fidelis' part.  I'm not expecting the Wolverines or whatever they may be now to play a part, they're included for the same reason the Fidelis are: they weren't fully annihilated and seem to be waiting to play some part in the story yet future.

YMMV

[MarauderCH IIC]

I haven't unleashed my 'What is that mysterious fleet' theory on anyone yet either. I'm behind the times in reading so not entirely up to date on what is going on. But isn't there a big unknown fleet jumping into Terra or somewhere? This crazy theory is that it's the Ghost Bears and the end result is some kind of joint JF/W/SJ/GB ilClan ending. I don't have any theories on how that would go down though. But I thought it would be quite fitting for the original invading clans to end up working together as joint ilClans. It doesn't really meld with my JF/SJ theory very well though. BLP says it is going to be something we don't expect. Who would expect that result? (Besides me, I guess)

[Cannonshop]

here's what's really going to happen.

The Falcons have been handed the "Villain Ball" with Malvina, because for this 'war' to be exciting and follow the formula, there has to be one outright villain-bag-o'-nuts in the mix and it's not the Ghost Bears, Wolves (because they made Alaric a Davion), or Sea Foxes.

the home-clans are written into a corner and can't come out.  That leaves the Falcons as choice numbers 1,2, 3 through infinity for "Justly annihilated by the heroes."

Basically they've been turned into cut-rate Smoke Pscho, but without the redeeming features.

Basically they've been pumped into a 'Great big threat' so that they can be heroically wiped out.

we've seen this movie before.

Every faction that gets handed the Villain Ball goes through certain formulaic changes:

1. Their leadership either goes insane on screen, or loses it off screen.
2. the insanity in question usually revolves around some form of 'dirty dealing' and 'highlight: Ruthless/honorless!'  (We first saw this with the CapCon prior to Succession war 4, but retroactively re-read the historicals around Wolf's Dragoons published in the 2000s.  Duncan Marik in particular.  in Battletech, your leader goes nuts, you will be destroyed by the heroes.)  We saw it again with the Smoked kitties, and then again with Jihad (Jihad harder!!), War of Reaving, and now, ilClan. 

It's simple and predictable.  Said destruction may leave a few remnant fragments if the designers feel either the need for chump-bags for the spotless heroes to punch, or feel there's a negative reaction to the eventual curbstomp that needs to be mollified somewhat.  (See: Capcon)

Keep in mind, I liked Jade Falcon since "Invading Clans" back in the nineties, but they've always been kind of 'runner up for villain ball status' (except for a brief time revolving around "Jade Phoenix" and Diana Pryde.)

The ones I liked best, were Marthe Pryde's Falcons-fighting to succeed while keeping their integrity intact-because despite being a 'dark' faction, that's a heroic struggle.  Malvina is essentially the Falcons giving up what made them worth the support in a calculated move to make it easier to swallow getting rid of them in a pyre so that the designated hero (tm) can look like he's overcome some great adversary.

without said adversary burdening the story with depth or actually presenting a real challenge (kind of like how they had to retroactively add material to the curbstomp of the Smoked Kitties years after the source material was first published.)

Every admirable trait of the Falcons (including their integrity) has been removed.  The surgery was not clean, and it telegraphs what's going to happen pretty clearly.

[Kit deSummersville]

Does anyone know of a canon support vehicle available to the Falcons, that can carry a 70-ton load faster than 3/5 on roads?

I'm sure they could have captured a Zugvogel at some point....

[Jellico]

here's what's really going to happen.

The Falcons have been handed the "Villain Ball" with Malvina, because for this 'war' to be exciting and follow the formula, there has to be one outright villain-bag-o'-nuts in the mix and it's not the Ghost Bears, Wolves (because they made Alaric a Davion), or Sea Foxes.

At least Malvina works for her wins. I like the Falcons where they are at the moment. They are easy to write for. Easy motivations, easy strategic and tactical explanations. And by extension the Horses who are primarily animated by the Falcons actions. Not like the Dominion and 3/5 of the Sea Foxes who do nothing and whose motivations are unknown.

[DarkSpade]

What would be cool would be to see the falcons actually take the lead on taking earth and be right on the verge of winning. Something where falcon players could say, "ya know, we did almost had it," but Malvina finally goes too far and the more level headed falcons finally have had enough.  Have the rebelling forces approach the wolves like, "Hey, as much as we'd like to take Terra, this ain't the way it should be done. How about you throw us some support in offing this [lady] and then we'll be too busy to stop you from taking Terra first? Other wise, we gotta keep following her lead and do you know how many nukes she has?"

Way more interesting ways that could go than just having the wolves wear white cowboy hats while the falcons wear black.

[vaderi]

1. Their leadership either goes insane on screen, or loses it off screen.
2. the insanity in question usually revolves around some form of 'dirty dealing' and 'highlight: Ruthless/honorless!'  (We first saw this with the CapCon prior to Succession war 4, but retroactively re-read the historicals around Wolf's Dragoons published in the 2000s.  Duncan Marik in particular.  in Battletech, your leader goes nuts, you will be destroyed by the heroes.)  We saw it again with the Smoked kitties, and then again with Jihad (Jihad harder!!), War of Reaving, and now, ilClan. 

In all fairness, the Battletech Dynasties have remarkably little insanity/villainous ruthlessness and it's pretty hard to rule an empire when you've got serious mental health issues*.

*Not that Battletech handles mental health particularly well.

[Cannonshop]

In all fairness, the Battletech Dynasties have remarkably little insanity/villainous ruthlessness and it's pretty hard to rule an empire when you've got serious mental health issues*.

*Not that Battletech handles mental health particularly well.

It'd be nicer if they didn't feel the need to make every 'villain' faction or big-bad blitz-raging-bonkers first.

you know, cold, methodical and determined instead of nihilistic psychotics who eventually lose by possessing the idiot ball.

The problem of course, being that it's a hell of a lot harder to write a villain who's smart, sane, and still destined to be defeated.  It is so much easier to write a villain who's basically one step from xanax happyland, because then it's not as wearing on the creator emotionally.

[Scotty]

So are we ignoring Yori Kurita for this bit of narrative pigeonholing or....?

[rebs]

Kathrine Steiner-Davion is also being ignored.

[MarauderCH IIC]

So are we ignoring Yori Kurita for this bit of narrative pigeonholing or....?

Enlighten us.

[Scotty]

you know, cold, methodical and determined instead of nihilistic psychotics who eventually lose by possessing the idiot ball.

This is Yori Kurita to a T.  Installed as a figurehead, she's currenly in firm control of the Combine, to such an extent that the warlord who figured he could wield the puppet's strings is now serving at her pleasure and not the other way around:



Describing villain factions as either crazy or stupid is reductive and refuses to actually engage with the subject matter in favor of heaping blame on author fiat.  We can do better.

[Cannonshop]

So are we ignoring Yori Kurita for this bit of narrative pigeonholing or....?

"Villain Ball" has a very specific narrative meaning-that is, first your faction has to be staged as a central figure in the action.  The brief possession of the Villain Ball by Davion resulted in Caleb being a rapist and a moron (See:Palmyra).

Yori's got the 'Antihero' ball, which can 'look' like the Villain-Ball (See: Sun Tzu Liao), but isn't the same thing at all, and Katherine pretty much gutted the Lyrans while she had her little meltdown.  (again, she couldn't be sane or rational because that was victor-the-hero's job) all her sane and rational actions were done off-screen.

in Malvina's case, you've got someone who is too irrational for anyone but a nutjob to follow, and it isn't an act (See Sun Tzu Liao for someone who only pretends to be crazy).

Yori isn't even acting crazy-she's actually acting remarkably sane for the culture as laid out.  (See: Sengoku-Jidai era Japan).

nor are Yori's actions Self Destructive.

which is really where the stereotypical villain ball shows up with Malvina.  Malvina's actions are nihilistic and self (Faction) harming, which is why nobody rational would follow her.

Not even a rational clanner.

and it's on-screen, it's even shown in her private thoughts.

so while others might be bad people, and even bad people whose success is hard to account for, the Falcons have been handed the sack of self-destruction.

[Scotty]

So you're explicitly using those terms reductively to stuff characters into neat categories.  Cool.

[Cannonshop]

So you're explicitly using those terms reductively to stuff characters into neat categories.  Cool.

The franchise has certain specific tropes it tends to follow, identifying those isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can be if the pattern hits a point of repetition where it becomes too predictable, or where a whole faction goes through a radical change solely in order to conform to those tropes.  In the case with Jade Falcon, depth was removed and progress/development undone to shift the faction back into the cardboard two-dimensional villain role needed for a spectacular victory for Clan Wolf.

[Manchu]

Cannonshop, you make some strong points and I especially relate to your disappointment about how it looks like things are poised to work out with the Evil Jade Falcons laid low by the Heroic Wolf Empire. (Although we have been told not to expect the expected.) But I am not convinced that Malvina’s rise to power was out of the blue or represents a diminishment of depth for CJF. At the core of CJF psychology is a toxic dynamic of violent, resentful ambition and repressive conservatism. The other ICs have all gradually come to terms with the way they have developed since the Invasion era (becoming empires, dominions, alliances, etc.). For CJF, all the bottled up anxiety about change exploded in the Mongol movement, personified by Malvina. CJF is in crisis.

Nonetheless, the way the narrative has been structured leaves us precious little hope that Malvina can be anything but a villainous psychopath who must be put down, leaving behind Good Guy Jade Falcons forced to accept (at best) their traditional First Place Loser result.

[Mecha82]

The franchise has certain specific tropes it tends to follow, identifying those isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can be if the pattern hits a point of repetition where it becomes too predictable, or where a whole faction goes through a radical change solely in order to conform to those tropes.  In the case with Jade Falcon, depth was removed and progress/development undone to shift the faction back into the cardboard two-dimensional villain role needed for a spectacular victory for Clan Wolf.

I totally agree with this. Signs are there that that's direction that they are taking story. All just so that Wolves can have bad guy to triumph over. This is something that also bothers me. Why is BT currently stuck with good vs. evil when there was ones time that things were far more morally grey. I mean other than it being narrative short cut and way to force people cheer for certain faction over another faction.

[Foxx Ital]

I just want to point out malvina is falconing as hard as she can and can't falcon any harder.

[Cannonshop]

Cannonshop, you make some strong points and I especially relate to your disappointment about how it looks like things are poised to work out with the Evil Jade Falcons laid low by the Heroic Wolf Empire. (Although we have been told not to expect the expected.) But I am not convinced that Malvina’s rise to power was out of the blue or represents a diminishment of depth for CJF. At the core of CJF psychology is a toxic dynamic of violent, resentful ambition and repressive conservatism. The other ICs have all gradually come to terms with the way they have developed since the Invasion era (becoming empires, dominions, alliances, etc.). For CJF, all the bottled up anxiety about change exploded in the Mongol movement, personified by Malvina. CJF is in crisis.

Nonetheless, the way the narrative has been structured leaves us precious little hope that Malvina can be anything but a villainous psychopath who must be put down, leaving behind Good Guy Jade Falcons forced to accept (at best) their traditional First Place Loser result.

Just want to point out one thign here: "Mongol" doesn't mean "Nihilist".  Malvina's got no goal other than destruction.  her long term goal is extinction, it was made explicitly evident in her own inner monologue.

her actions demonstrate this.  Chingiz Khan was as much a builder, as he was a destroyer, he built an empire, he built an army and a new way to wage war.  most of the really brutal and nasty stuff happened when his inheritors (Tamarlane, etc.) were unable to live up to his accomplishments and were unable to handle the task of administrating the empire he built.

The ones that were actually competent, eventually ruled china-but they didn't do it from horseback.

The mongol doctrine as presented, doesn't work for anything but short term gains followed by near annihilation when the neighbours have had enough of one's shit.

Two: Malvina doesn't bring anything new to the table.  even the Falcons broke bid and you remember Elias Crichell and Vandervaghn Chistu?  a little event involving an arrow IV battery and a certain formerly alive ilKhan?  Remember how Marthe Pryde got the job in the first place?

admittedly, Chistu and Crichell weren't stupid enough to crash a warship into their own capital as a political statement.  But then, they weren't self-destructive nihilists piggybacking on a social movement.

[rim_pirate]

I totally agree with this. Signs are there that that's direction that they are taking story. All just so that Wolves can have bad guy to triumph over. This is something that also bothers me. Why is BT currently stuck with good vs. evil when there was ones time that things were far more morally grey. I mean other than it being narrative short cut and way to force people cheer for certain faction over another faction.

I am at a loss how anyone can see the inbred-led, backstabbing, opportunistic Wolf Empire as good guy. These are not the early-invasion, caste-liberal, freebirth-loving goody-two-shoes Wolves but rather the spiritual if not actual children of Vlad the Crusader. No, a Wolf win over the Falcons is at most the insane despot losing to the inbred despot. But good guy? Nope.

If they needed a good-guy triumph over the Falcons, either Julian Davion or, better yet, back-from-the-dead Victor Ian "I beheaded a Clan ilKhan like it was Tuesday" Steiner-Davion himself would have to do the deed.

[Cannonshop]

I am at a loss how anyone can see the inbred-led, backstabbing, opportunistic Wolf Empire as good guy. These are not the early-invasion, caste-liberal, freebirth-loving goody-two-shoes Wolves but rather the spiritual if not actual children of Vlad the Crusader. No, a Wolf win over the Falcons is at most the insane despot losing to the inbred despot. But good guy? Nope.

If they needed a good-guy triumph over the Falcons, either Julian Davion or, better yet, back-from-the-dead Victor Ian "I beheaded a Clan ilKhan like it was Tuesday" Steiner-Davion himself would have to do the deed.

I think you need to account for where the standards are set.  Relative to each other, these Wolves Are the good guys-compared to these Falcons.  Julian, it's true, is set up for a redemption arc, and hooking up with Devlin makes that much more likely...but the product phase isn't called "Ilsuns" it's called "ilClan", so as a clan centric phase, the Wolves end up topping the Falcons yet again, because they don't get presented as nearly the level of demented.  (and that INCLUDES the inbred jed in charge of the Wolves).

A Falcon redemption would be neat, but it's not gonna happen-there's no strong Jade Falcon personality expressing doubts about Malvina and showing viability, which is what would be necessary, no conservative voice to argue against her rampant nihilism and runaway waste either.

which we'd have by now, if there were a redemption arc in the offing.

Julian is the redemption arc for Caleb, just like Trillian (Who's going to be Julian's sidekick and maybe Alaric's side-piece) is the redemption (sort of) for Melissa.

but there's no saving the Falcons at this point, and a sudden arrival of an Internal Falcon challenger to mad malvina isn't in the cards-the word count to make it credible costs too much.

[GreekFire]

A Falcon redemption would be neat, but it's not gonna happen-there's no strong Jade Falcon personality expressing doubts about Malvina and showing viability, which is what would be necessary, no conservative voice to argue against her rampant nihilism and runaway waste either.

which we'd have by now, if there were a redemption arc in the offing.

Isn't Stephanie Chistu exactly that?

[Cannonshop]

Isn't Stephanie Chistu exactly that?

'Strong" figure.

[Scotty]

Putting that word in quotes does nothing to clarify its meaning in context.  Her primary disqualification is an entirely artificial one, in that there aren't enough novels/novellas to go around for her to get more.

[Kit deSummersville]

Mismatched quotes at that....